Aggregation Promotes Simplification?

[Owen Densmore]

Thinking about how organizations appear to be more error prone (read
idiotic) as they grow in size, I suspect there has been some research
in this area.

Basically the idea is that as more people are added to an organization,
the subtle thoughts of the individual are lost, acting a bit like a
sieve, leaving behind just the simple core ideas shared by most.  
Somewhat like a Markov chain that stabilizes after a certain number of
iterations.

Does anyone have pointers to good analysis in this area?

        -- Owen

Owen Densmore         908 Camino Santander   Santa Fe, NM 87505
Cell: 505-570-0168    Home: 505-988-3787     http://backspaces.net

[Frank Wimberly]

Here's a link to a .ppt presentation that, I think, argues for the contrary
view or a view related to it.

http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~jbloom/opinion/Macro.ppt

Frank

---
Frank C. Wimberly       140 Calle Ojo Feliz       Santa Fe, NM 87505

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004 4:43 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Aggregation Promotes Simplification?

Thinking about how organizations appear to be more error prone (read
idiotic) as they grow in size, I suspect there has been some research
in this area.

Basically the idea is that as more people are added to an organization,
the subtle thoughts of the individual are lost, acting a bit like a
sieve, leaving behind just the simple core ideas shared by most.  
Somewhat like a Markov chain that stabilizes after a certain number of
iterations.

Does anyone have pointers to good analysis in this area?

        -- Owen

Owen Densmore         908 Camino Santander   Santa Fe, NM 87505
Cell: 505-570-0168    Home: 505-988-3787     http://backspaces.net


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[Owen Densmore]

Interesting slide set.  I think it helps me sharpen the distinction.

Collections of folks acting as an organization (bureaucracy) act like a
larger, dumber individual.  Aggregation is a sort of filter.  
Collections of people acted upon as a computer, however, have emergent
computational abilities.  They are great predictors of human behavior.

Actually, I've heard that in the voting realm, polls are more accurate
than the actual vote itself!  I.e. the bugs in the voting procedures
are bad enough and the statistics of polling are good enough that the
polls win.

I sent jbloom an email asking for more pointers.

        -- Owen

Owen Densmore         908 Camino Santander   Santa Fe, NM 87505
Cell: 505-570-0168    Home: 505-988-3787     http://backspaces.net

On Jun 4, 2004, at 12:53 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

> Here's a link to a .ppt presentation that, I think, argues for the
> contrary
> view or a view related to it.
>
> http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~jbloom/opinion/Macro.ppt
>
> Frank
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly       140 Calle Ojo Feliz       Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
> Behalf
> Of Owen Densmore
> Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004 4:43 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: [FRIAM] Aggregation Promotes Simplification?
>
> Thinking about how organizations appear to be more error prone (read
> idiotic) as they grow in size, I suspect there has been some research
> in this area.
>
> Basically the idea is that as more people are added to an organization,
> the subtle thoughts of the individual are lost, acting a bit like a
> sieve, leaving behind just the simple core ideas shared by most.
> Somewhat like a Markov chain that stabilizes after a certain number of
> iterations.
>
> Does anyone have pointers to good analysis in this area?
>
> -- Owen
>
> Owen Densmore         908 Camino Santander   Santa Fe, NM 87505
> Cell: 505-570-0168    Home: 505-988-3787     http://backspaces.net
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9AM @ Jane's Cafe
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9AM @ Jane's Cafe
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org

[Parks, Raymond]

Owen Densmore wrote:
> Thinking about how organizations appear to be more error prone (read
> idiotic) as they grow in size

   Here's where we disagree - I believe that organizations of any size
become more error prone with age.  As organizations age, the behaviours
that provided enough success to allow the birth of the organization
become more and more inappropriate to the changing environment.
Eventually, if the organization does not adapt, it will die.  A very few
organizations are capable of evolutionary adaptation to changes in the
environment, gradually changing without major trauma to the organization
or the individuals that form it.  Some organizations manage to achieve
revolutionary adaptation to changes in the environment, following a
cycle of gradually increasing inappropriate behaviour, a major
reorganization and adoption of new behaviours and then starting the
cycle again.  This type of organization is more traumatic to itself and
its component individuals and may, eventually, die in one of the
revolutions.  Many organizations never adapt and eventually either cause
enough irritation of the environment so as to be terminated or become
irrelevant and ignored.  Organizations can change from one type to
another over time and the line between the types is blurred.
   An example of the first type of organization is the United States'
Federal government as specified in the Constitution.  The initial
behaviour of that organization would not be appropriate to its current
environment and has evolved over the last 215 years.  One might argue
that the current behaviour is inappropriate, but that would be mistaking
  the immediate with the overall behaviour.  Evolutionarily adapting
organizations also follow a cycle of increasingly inappropriate
behaviour ending with the evolutionary adaptation.  The level of
dissonance with the environment is smaller at its peak than the cycle of
revolutionary adapting organizations.  The US slipped briefly into
revolutionary adaptation during the War Between the States and Prohibition.
   For an example of a revolutionary adapting organization that seems to
have achieved evolutionary adaptation, look at the governments of most
European countries.  These have a longer history than the United States
of revolutionary adaptation (empire - feudalism - empire - parliamentary
democracy).  For the last 50-plus years they have exhibited evolutionary
adaptation.
   My own organization, Sandia National Laboratories, shows some of the
fossilization of age but has managed evolutionary adaptation.  At least
we haven't had massive layoffs of nuclear weapon engineers in favor of
information technologists.  In part this is attributable to a skunkworks
corporate culture with a can-do attitude.  Another reason that Sandia
has manage to evolve rather than revolt is diversification.  This latter
actually argues against your size point - larger organizations can be
more diverse which allows a greater range of behaviours and more ability
to adapt.  In recent years, the dissonance with our environment has
increased.  I attribute this increase to the increasing intrusion of
government bureaucracy into an organization that has always worked in a
skunkworks mode.
   Organizational size plays a much smaller role in failure to adapt to
the environment than does age.  Greater size can help by allowing
greater diversity of behaviour.  Smaller size makes adaptation less
traumatic to the organization in that fewer individuals need to change.
  Age is the key, however, since it is only over time that
organizational behaviour becomes inappropriate to its environment.

--
Ray Parks                   [hidden email]
IDART Project Lead          Voice:505-844-4024
IORTA Department            Fax:[phone]
http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:800-690-5288